Neon is useful as a filling gas in lamps and luminous sign tubes. In addition, neon is used in airplane beacons because neon light can penetrate fog where other lights cannot.
Neon is produced by the cryogenic distillation of air wherein a stream from a cryogenic air separation plant is passed through a neon purification train including a neon column and a cryogenic adsorption system to produce a crude neon product which is then passed to a neon refinery to produce refined neon product. Neon is present in air in a concentration of about 18 parts per million (ppm). Because of this low concentration and also because the neon column and the cryogenic adsorption system require significant amounts of refrigeration to operate successfully, a relatively large flow from the cryogenic air separation plant must be taken in order to produce crude neon. This outflow from the air separation plant significantly burdens the plant and compromises its operation with respect to the production of the other components of air.
It is thus desirable to have a system which can produce crude neon from an air separation plant without burdening the air separation plant as much as do conventional crude neon production processes.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a method for producing crude neon employing a cryogenic air separation plant while lessening the burden placed on the air separation plant by conventional crude neon production processes.
It is another object of this invention to provide an apparatus for producing crude neon employing a cryogenic air separation plant while lessening the burden placed on the air separation plant by conventional crude neon production processes.